This Election Day, voters on the North Fork can take a huge step to improve water quality and preserve open space and farmland. Since 1999, the Community Preservation Fund has raised over $1 billion for land and historic preservation in East Hampton, Riverhead, Shelter Island, Southampton and Southold, which cover 40 percent of Suffolk County’s land.

News-Review and Suffolk Times editor Michael White will be appearing Friday morning on the “Going Green” radio show hosted by Group for the East End president Bob DeLuca.

The show airs at 11 a.m. on WPPB (Peconic Public Broadcasting) at 88.3 FM and runs until noon.

Mr. White will be joined by fellow East End newspaper editors David Rattray, editor of the East Hampton Star, and Joe Shaw, executive director of the Press News Group, which publishes The Southampton Press eastern and western editions, and the East Hampton Press.

The journalists will take to the studio for an in-depth discussion on the region’s top environmental issues.

“From the controversial culling of deer, to the future of water quality, learn how the local media decides what issues matter and where the truth lies,” reads a press announcement from WPPB, “while we consider the impact these decisions have on community perceptions and attitudes about the future of our environment.”

Listeners are invited to join the conversation by posting questions on the WPPB Facebook page.

CARRIE MILLER PHOTO | Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, called for the banning of certain pesticides at the DEC’s Draft Long Island Pesticide Pollution Prevention Strategy hearing at Suffolk County Community College in Northampton last Wednesday night.

Environmental advocates, farmers, and elected officials stepped up to the microphone one by one last week, voicing support for or concern about the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s draft strategy to prevent future pesticide contamination of Long Island’s drinking water supplies.

Close to 100 people attended the hearing at Suffolk County Community College’s Eastern Campus in Riverhead last Wednesday night, April 3.

The new, 122-page proposed strategy calls for a technical review and advisory committee to review water quality data, so it can weigh factors such as human health risks and the availability of effective pesticide alternatives. The committee would provide the DEC with background information needed to support future regulatory action.

The draft strategy also calls for a working group of stakeholders to make sure those directly involved in pest management, pesticide use and water quality on Long Island are broadly represented.

Since 1996, 117 different pesticide-related chemicals have been detected in Long Island’s groundwater, according to the DEC.

By 1998 the agency began developing a plan to prevent further degradation of below-ground water supplies, culminating with the release of a draft plan in 2011 that included the possibility of a zero tolerance policy on certain pesticide uses. But the 2011 draft drew great concern from farmers, who said they would not be able to farm successfully under such harsh restrictions.

“The zero tolerance provision upset us greatly,” Joe Gergela, executive director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, said in an interview about the 2011 proposed plan, which got scrapped. “We objected to it because in the draft document was the notion of zero tolerance. We had to interpret what zero meant. To me, zero means if they found something, it’s banned.”

Taking note of those concerns, in January, the DEC released its newest proposal to prevent future pesticide contamination, calling the new draft a “strategy.”

Environmental advocates at the hearing last week said the proposed strategy is a step back from the original plan proposed in 2011.

Bob DeLuca, president of Group for the East End, said the strategy lacked specific goals for improving water quality over time.

Mr. DeLuca also asked for specific triggers, such as a certain number or level of pesticide detections, that would require the DEC to take regulatory action. He said the strategy also lacks a way to gauge how well it is working.

The new draft strategy “simply calls for more meetings and more planning” with too many “vagaries going forward,” he said.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, asked for a ban on three common pesticides — atrazine, metalaxyl, and imidacloprid — compounds she said are the most commonly found in Long Island’s groundwater.

Ms. Esposito asked the DEC to take responsibility for finding safer alternatives to common pesticides entering groundwater

But representatives of the East End’s agricultural community cautioned against implementing overly restrictive pesticide regulations, saying farmers need pesticides to remain economically viable.

Deborah Schmitt of Schmitt Family Farms in Riverhead voiced concern about a pesticides ban saying, “The last measure we use is pesticides.”

She said that before any pesticide is taken off the market alternatives must be identified, adding that the past few years have already been a struggle for Long Island’s farmers.

Ms. Schmitt also said a zero-tolerance policy for pesticides in groundwater “will put us out of business.” Long Island Farm Bureau executive director Joe Gergela agrees.

“Don’t start talking about banning things until the homework is done,” he said.

On the proposed banning of imidacloprid, for example, Mr. Gergela later said in an interview, “You have to be careful what you ask for.

“The alternative is far more toxic,” he said. “It’s product called dylox, and it is not as effective.”

Mr. Gergela also asked the DEC to assess risks presented by pesticides versus their benefit to society, adding that farming on Long Island is a $300 million industry.

“We need to work together,” he said. “We have to balance the issue.”

After the meeting, DEC deputy commissioner Eugene Leff said the agency would “seriously consider” creating water quality goals to ensure water quality changes are addressed over time.

Developing automatic triggers for regulatory action would be more difficult, he added. He believes a one-fits-all standard is not possible since different pesticides are harmful at different levels. The DEC is accepting public comments regarding the draft strategy until April 30. Comments can be submitted through email to: [email protected] or by fax to 518-402-9024, or mailed to: